Surviving as a Sorcerer in Seoul - Chapter 45

Chapter 45. Chronicle of the Sea’s Gloom and Erosion (4)

TL: DDTL

“No way……”

Bakumon kept blurting out exclamations of awe.

Ever since he’d set foot in the world of sorcery,

Ju Gi-baek had grown so thoroughly immune to reactions like that that he was sick of them.

He swept a flat gaze over the remaining believers.

No matter how vicious the drugs they’d inhaled or how steeped in madness these fanatics were,

they seemed shaken by the counter Ju Gi-baek had just pulled off. In front of the burning corpses, they were plainly hesitating.

Ju Gi-baek jerked his chin toward the front.

“Looks like we’d better wrap this up fast and get inside.”

“Ah. Right. I did a stupid thing there for a second.”

Bakumon closed his gaping mouth and gave a crooked grin.

He clenched both fists tight.

Pop! Pop!

Like fireworks going off,

vivid, multicolored flames flashed fiercely around his fists.

“Here I go.”

Boom!

Bakumon kicked off the ground.

The recoil of the explosions bursting all over his limbs lent his movements an acceleration, as if he’d strapped on a booster.

Bang! Bang!

Apparently not every single Baekbaek Cult believer had a self-destruct spell rigged to their body.

The ones charging in after that were armed with an assortment of blades.

But what chance did such crude force stand?

Every time Bakumon swung his fist, a short burst of explosions followed.

Bang! Bang!

“Gyaaaagh!”

“N-no!”

“B-Baekbaek Cheonha! We can’t fall back… urk!”

The believers’ heads and limbs burst apart and went flying.

Bakumon finished cleaning up in no time, drenched in blood. He turned back to Ju Gi-baek.

“Your side?”

“Just about done.”

Thwack!

Ju Gi-baek answered as he drove his fist into the last remaining believer’s gut. The believer, taking a Waveform Fist strike square-on, was sent flying off into the distance.

Crash!

He punched clean through a window of the building and slammed inside. Shards of glass scattered like snowflakes.

Watching, Bakumon clicked his tongue in amazement.

“You’re carrying a sword, and you’re that skilled with your fists too? And on top of that you’ve got explosive-flame control as precise as mine?”

“……”

“The more I look, the stranger you are.”

Bakumon studied Ju Gi-baek’s fist with an entranced look. That blatant, clinging stare.

For some reason, Ju Gi-baek felt an odd sense of pressure.

‘A guy latching onto me like that, it’s downright creepy.’

Ju Gi-baek scowled hard.

Before long he shook the blood off his hand and stepped into the villa building. The hem of his coat fluttered.

Bakumon belatedly fell in close behind him.

The guy never stopped moving his feet, but his tongue never rested for a moment either.

“Where’d you learn that fist technique? I’ve got an eye for pretty much every martial art out there. That, it looks like the kind of fist style a lot of Korean sorcerers use. The roots are definitely similar. But something about it is clearly different.”

“……”

“You said you were Taiwanese, didn’t you? Right?”

“……My mother’s Korean.”

“Ah. So you’re mixed, and that’s why you go out of your way to stay in Korea. That’s the deal.”

Bakumon nodded to himself, satisfied with his own interpretation.

Ju Gi-baek just let him keep on believing whatever he wanted.

Bothering to correct the facts would only mean getting tangled up in more conversation, which was exhausting. And it wasn’t a lie that his mother was Korean.

Though of course his father was a native-born Korean too.

Ju Gi-baek kept his eyes moving diligently, scanning the surroundings for any presence.

He said,

“If there’s a rat on the inside, we’ll have to check the villa’s interior first, and fast.”

“Of course. I’m going to blow that kusogaki’s head off with my own hands.”

“For now……”

Ju Gi-baek’s steps came to a halt.

He’d reached the stairs leading toward the Grafting site.

Bakumon, trailing behind him, stopped in turn.

“What is it?”

Bakumon peered at the scene over Ju Gi-baek’s broad shoulder.

His face soon twisted grimly and his lips curled.

“Kuso……”

“……”

Kang Yuto was collapsed on the floor.

Had he taken a fatal wound?

A small amount of red blood had spread across the floor.

Ju Gi-baek approached and crouched down beside his head.

There was a shallow cut left on Kang Yuto’s abdomen. Ju Gi-baek reached out to stanch the bleeding.

Zzzt.

A golden barrier flicked his hand away, blocking it.

‘Did he protect himself with an automatic Barrier right before taking a fatal wound?’

The bracelet fitted around Kang Yuto’s wrist was giving off an ominous light.

Well, if you were going to work as a Mediator in a world this rough, you’d need at least one hidden trump card up your sleeve.

Fortunately for the unfortunate, Kang Yuto, who’d been unconscious, quickly came to. Groaning in pain, he snapped his eyes open.

Then, spotting Ju Gi-baek and Bakumon looking down at him, he cried out.

“Y-Yūda. That son of a bitch is the mole……!”

“No wonder he had those creepy, rat-like eyes.”

Bakumon muttered his own personal brand of physiognomy. He curled both fists and threw a question at Kang Yuto.

“Where’s Yūda?”

“……The last thing I remember is seeing him head toward the Grafting site.”

“It should be swarming with malevolent energy in there. How?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the guy’s got some kind of trick up his sleeve……”

Answering that, Kang Yuto grimaced. The pain still lingering, he clutched at his abdomen.

A little blood seeped out between his fingers.

“Enough questions. For now we’d better get over there fast.”

Ju Gi-baek stood up.

He let his coat hem flare and drew the Yogwang Sword.

Bakumon likewise settled into a combat stance.

Their eyes turned toward the Grafting site.

The iron door hung half-crumpled and thrown wide open. It gave the sense that something dire had gone down.

Sure enough, the interior of the Grafting site was wrecked.

It was nothing short of a disaster scene.

In the very center of the wreckage,

Geumgang lay collapsed.

He’d wrapped his huge frame in a curl around Yu-a, shielding her.

Yu-a, who’d been blinking under a coat of dust, groggily opened her eyes. She strained to push away the thick arm of Geumgang pinning her down and got up.

“Uwaah… narrow-eyes. That narrow-eyed guy caused all this. He’s crazy strong. That one.”

“What?”

Bakumon’s eyes went wide.

“He grabbed the ‘Chronicle of the Sea’s Gloom and Erosion’ and ran off.”

Yu-a stamped her feet, unable to keep still.

Right on cue, Geumgang, who’d been knocked out, drew a heaving breath and burst into booming laughter.

“Aigoo! This Humble Monk nearly died! Still, lucky Patron Baek-gi showed up right when he did. That he did!”

Scratching his head and rattling off his usual banter, Geumgang groped emptily behind his own back. Belatedly realizing the ‘Chronicle of the Sea’s Gloom and Erosion’ had been snatched, he smacked his lips.

“Hmm. We’re fucked. That we are.”

Having heard the whole story, Bakumon snorted and kicked a shattered chair. Clang, the chair went flying and shattered into pieces the instant it hit the wall.

He muttered irritably.

“Damn bastard! How fast is he, to have already knocked out this many people and run off? At this rate we’re already too late.”

“N-no we’re not…!”

Yu-a threw a hand up as if in protest.

Between the strands of sweat-soaked bangs, her eyes flashed wide.

“I stuck a ghost on him. We can chase him down.”

*

It was time for Ju Gi-baek’s fully-loaded SUV to really show its worth.

Vrooooom!

Ju Gi-baek cut the wheel back and forth, weaving through the cars ahead.

The superhuman reflexes he’d cultivated through Spiritual Power came in handy at times like this.

Screeeech!

The chassis wormed through the gaps between cars by a hair’s breadth, tearing down the road at a terrifying speed. It was reckless driving, plain and simple.

“Farther south! He’s heading south!”

Yu-a, seatbelt strapped tight in the back seat, shouted urgently.

Ju Gi-baek stared ahead with sunken eyes.

Bakumon, riding shotgun, gripped the handle on the ceiling to steady himself and marveled.

“Your driving, at least, is smoking hot!”

Tch. Originally he’d been a paper-license driver.

Ju Gi-baek didn’t bother saying that out loud.

He stomped the accelerator flat to the floor.

The chassis snarled and shot forward. At the same moment, Yu-a pointed at a spot outside the window.

“There… he’s over there…”

Ju Gi-baek’s gaze swiftly followed her fingertip.

Sure enough.

Some black sedan racing up ahead was driving as though it were performing acrobatics.

It darted busily across the narrow lanes, weaving along by a hair’s breadth.

Even Bakumon was appalled by that audacious driving.

“Is that guy insane?”

“Agreed.”

Ju Gi-baek’s face contorted.

Good grief.

To drive like that in the dead center of the city.

If Ju Gi-baek’s driving amounted to the sentence for petty subsistence theft,

then Yūda’s driving was nothing short of the sentence for a serial killer.

Bwaaaaang!

What’s more, every time Yūda’s sedan whipped past someone,

the startled drivers around him blared their horns like mad.

Honk! Honk! Hooonk!

Just then the signal at the intersection turned red.

It was a gridlock stretch caused by cars blocking the box, so the stopped vehicles were packed bumper to bumper.

Even Yūda couldn’t find a gap and briefly brought his car to a stop.

The mood on the road was downright savage.

The driver’s-side windows of several stopped cars rolled down.

Then people leaned out, half their upper bodies practically bursting through. They started jabbing their fingers at Yūda’s car.

The angry citizens of Busan let loose their thunder.

“Oi! Have you lost your damn mind! Get out here! You punk!”

“The hell’s with this bastard. Did he shove his eyeballs up a dog’s ass? What kind of shit-ass driving is this!”

“Look at this guy. Look… acting like nothing’s wrong… my blood’s boiling. Hey! Mister!”

Vrooooom!

Yūda pressed on despite the torrent of abuse.

The watching Busan citizens groaned as they stared at the sedan’s receding rear end.

And so Yūda ignored the light and cut across the busy intersection.

Screeeeech!

Screeeech!

Spotting the car that had blown past the stop line,

the vehicles coming straight through from both sides swerved hard to avoid Yūda.

Then, with the sound of impact, the cars set off a chain-reaction collision.

Crash! Crash!

The road ended up completely jammed.

The intersection turned into a chaotic mess of vehicles with hoods hideously crumpled and smoke rising all over.

In the aftermath of the pileup, honking horns mixed with people’s screams and shouts.

Screech!

Ju Gi-baek slammed the brakes and brought the SUV to a stop.

Ju Gi-baek, Bakumon, and Yu-a in the back seat all hurried out of the vehicle.

Bakumon, unable to contain his fury, thrashed about and shouted.

“Argh! Kuso! To lose that rat right under our noses!”

“……”

Ju Gi-baek let out a heavy sigh.

He leaned against the side of the SUV and crumpled his brow hard.

Dozens of cars were tangled together, the road completely blocked off.

Chasing by car was impossible now.

How the hell were they supposed to punch through this and keep after him?

Just as he was racking his brain over that thought,

Pop!

Kahutoa’s head burst out of the Lucky Pouch.

“Pwahh!”

He clambered out of the Lucky Pouch and gasped for ragged breath.

At the hulking brute that had suddenly popped out of the tiny pouch, Bakumon flinched and took half a step back.

Yu-a also let out a squeak and stumbled backward.

Bakumon’s fierce-looking eyes blinked rapidly.

“Wh-what? Who the hell is that guy? Since when has he been in there?”

“……A comrade.”

“What?”

Bakumon looked utterly dumbfounded. Naturally, the idea of carrying a person around in a Lucky Pouch was hard to accept as normal thinking.

But Ju Gi-baek paid him no mind and looked down at Kahutoa.

“Your timing’s uncanny. Came out for a breath of air?”

“That, among other things.”

Kahutoa’s broad rib cage swelled up and sank back down.

He barely managed to stroke his chest and grinned, baring his fangs.

“Need some help?”

“What?”

“I asked if you look like you need help. Tōhunga.” [TL Note: tōhunga is a Māori term for an expert or spiritual practitioner.]

Kahutoa wore a meaningful smile.

Ju Gi-baek asked back with a sour reaction.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I can help you punch through this jammed-up road and catch the guy. Provided, of course, I get suitable compensation to match.”

Ju Gi-baek cocked his head.

Then, recalling Kahutoa’s Self-Nature System, that tidal wave and canoe, he let out a low groan.

Was he seriously planning to drag in seawater and summon a canoe right in the middle of this gridlocked city intersection?

Only a madman would.

Just as he was picturing that sort of common-sense-defying development in his head,

Ju Gi-baek belatedly made his decision and spoke to Bakumon.

“Looks like we’re about to pull off something crazy enough to stick out to ordinary people, right here and now.”

“Huh? And what’s that pie-in-the-sky talk supposed to mean?”

“I mean it looks like we’re about to take on a big risk. I don’t really know how things work with Korea’s Dae-mo. But even accounting for that, my point is, if we end up holding the bag, can that Japanese chairman of yours reliably clean up the mess afterward?”

“……Well, that’s obviously going to matter. But who cares about the cost of some cleanup? At this point, the way things stand, even if we cause some insane, massive incident, as long as we get the ‘Chronicle of the Sea’s Gloom and Erosion’ back, he’s champing at the bit enough to somehow shove money into the Bureau’s pockets and smooth it all over.”

“For certain?”

“For certain. This, I, Bakumon, will vouch for with my life. Our chairman isn’t the petty type to just let something slide. The man’s got a ferocious amount of pride. Especially if something of his got stolen.”

“Then it’s fine.”

Ju Gi-baek reached his conclusion and looked at Kahutoa.

“The reward?”

“Pay me later. In money. A hefty sum.”

“Sure.”

Ju Gi-baek nodded.

He had no idea how much that bastard would demand later.

But that wasn’t his concern.

Either way, this was a cost the likes of Dae-mo and the Japanese chairman would split down the middle later.

The bottom line was, it wasn’t his problem.

Ordinarily he’d have found it too much of a hassle and just ignored it and moved on,

but from Ju Gi-baek’s standpoint too, getting robbed right in front of his eyes was not a situation he could let quietly slide.

He’d been standing there dutifully guarding the door, only to take somebody else’s shit square in the face.

How could he let that go so easily?

“The people here. Can they all move at once, in one trip?”

“That’s impossible. Not enough seats. One person has to stay behind.”

“Right. Understood.”

Ju Gi-baek gestured to Yu-a, who stood behind him.

“Come over here. Quickly.”

“Y-yes?”

Yu-a was flustered by the sudden summons.

Bakumon, who’d been standing there awkwardly beside her, was just as caught off guard.

“Hey! Why are you cutting me, the main fighting force, out like it’s a given?”

“Because Yu-a can track and chase him through the ghost she stuck on him. And Kahutoa and I are comrades, so we obviously move together no matter what.”

Running through the process of elimination so very rationally,

Bakumon, who couldn’t guide the way and was nothing but big, ended up the odd man out. [TL Note: the original uses a Korean idiom, literally “a duck’s egg left on the Nakdong River”, meaning someone left stranded and alone.]

It was an irrefutable barrage of cold hard facts.

Bakumon clamped his mouth shut with an aggrieved expression.

Whether he was steaming or not,

Kahutoa chanted his Word-Spirit.

“Moana!”

Whoooosh!

The smell of brine surged through the air.

Soon a rolling wave crashed over the asphalt and a single canoe appeared out of nowhere. Seeing the seawater and boat rising into the air, Yu-a let out a cry of wonder.

“S-so this is what you meant by sticking out…”

“That’s right. If ordinary people saw it, anyone would agree it makes no sense.”

“……If I graft the Perception Hindrance Art I’ve been practicing onto the surrounding area…. I think I can somehow keep the range of visual exposure to ordinary people down as much as possible….”

What good fortune.

Yu-a’s Spirit Medium tracking worked, and she’d shrink the range in which their conspicuous sorcery got exposed to ordinary people.

It was a perfectly matched party composition, truly.

And so onto the canoe atop the sloshing waves climbed Kahutoa, Ju Gi-baek, and the trembling Yu-a.

All three scrambled aboard in a flash.

The wave conjured from his mind’s imagery swept forward, using the cars ahead as stepping stones, and the canoe began to lift into the air.

At this, Bakumon, left behind all alone, scrambled to follow.

“Hey! Wh-what about me! What’s Bakumon supposed to do!”

“Take a taxi.”

“……Huh?”

Splash!

Deflected seawater soaked Bakumon’s face. He blankly watched the tail of the canoe recede into the distance.

How on earth, and to where, was he supposed to come?

Soon he hurriedly looked around and raised his hand.

“T-taxi!”

*

Onmyoji Yūda.

No, Paegwang (覇狂), High-ranking Believer of the Baekbaek Cult, glanced at the rearview mirror. There was no sign of that man following behind.

At last he let out a dank laugh and muttered to himself.

It was the raw truth beneath the surface, in stark contrast to the first impression he’d shown back at the villa.

“Shame. I wanted to have a proper go with him if I got the chance. Baek-gi, was it?”

He’d heard plenty of rumors about that Taiwanese fixer.

Word was, the man had fought the B-rank sorcerer Hassan to a standstill, and had done quite a job at the Loden Hotel too.

If he got a chance to be alone with him one-on-one next time, he really wanted to have a duel to the death. Paegwang had been forcibly suppressing that combative streak.

But for some reason, an alien Spiritual Power kept tugging at him from behind.

Foot on the accelerator, Paegwang checked the rearview mirror again.

“What?!”

Paegwang cried out despite himself.

It was because of the utterly absurd sight visible through the rearview mirror.

A canoe and seawater rising into the air above the jammed asphalt road. And three humans precariously perched atop them.

Were there ever such lunatics.

“Do those bastards seriously not give a damn about the Supernatural Management Bureau’s surveillance net? Flaunting sorcery that openly, in the dead center of a city crawling with CCTV?”

When he squinted and looked closely,

there was, admittedly, a Perception Hindrance Art layered thick around the canoe,

but still. He wasn’t sure it could conceal that perfectly.

For now, though, that was a later problem for Paegwang.

“Fuck. That canoe. Disgustingly fast.”

What mattered was that his own fleeing vehicle was being reeled in at a terrifying speed.

Paegwang hurriedly cut the wheel and tore down the road, but it wasn’t enough.

How was he supposed to shake a canoe that sliced through the air, entirely unaffected by the traffic?

In the end he wrenched the wheel and peeled off onto the shoulder.

He could see the canoe tailing him into the cramped alley. Those tenacious, vicious bastards.

Paegwang flicked his tongue out and wet his bone-dry lips.

Then at the end of the alley he cranked the wheel hard to the right.

Screeeeech!

The sedan burst out of the narrow alley and tore down a coastal road with a clear view of the shoreline below.

Even though winter was right around the corner,

crowds of people were swarming the food stalls lined up along the shore.

The sudden throng of people abruptly blocked his view.

“Assholes. If it’s winter, why not just hole up cozy in a warm room and drink there…!”

Crash-bang-bang-bang!

Several people, seeing the sedan barreling toward them like a madman, screamed and cleared out of the way.

And so the sedan, racing on without braking, plowed with a crash into a few of the food stall’s tables.

Soju bottles and a pot of fish-cake soup went flying into the air.

Then, panicking and reflexively spinning the wheel, he slammed into the curb before finally jamming on the brakes and stopping the car.

It was a perfect dead end.

“Hah!”

Paegwang slumped deep into the driver’s seat.

Goddamn it.

How could a planned job get this thoroughly tangled up?

He’d meant to steal the ‘Chronicle of the Sea’s Gloom and Erosion’ and slip out clean.

To have this little luck with the getaway.

To think anyone would summon a sea canoe like that in the dead center of the city.

Who on earth could have seen that coming.

Paegwang sat still in the driver’s seat, lost in thought.

That was when it happened.

Knock, knock.

“Excuse me. Hey, mister. Open the goddamn door.”

Someone rapped irritably on the driver’s-side window.

“The hell? This crazy guy, is he drunk or what?”

“Mister! Open the door, quick. You smash up somebody’s precious drinking spread and damn near kill people. Shit. Isn’t the decent thing to crawl out of the car and at least apologize?”

Okay. His brief bout of thinking was over.

“Well, since I’m fucked anyway, might as well dance a blade dance. Whatever.”

Paegwang snapped his narrow eyes open, opened the door, and got out.

A few big men who’d had their table taken closed in on him, surrounding him with murderous, thuggish looks.

One of them, his face flushed red, roughly grabbed Paegwang by the collar and shouted to his friend.

“One look at these glazed-over eyes, hundred percent he’s drunk. Call the cops, quick. This asshole needs to eat some prison food to come to his senses.”

“Hold on. Wait a sec. Keep a tight grip on his collar so this hit-and-run bastard can’t run. Yeah! Is this 112? So the thing is, right now at the food stalls down by the waterfront……”

Squelch!

The man reporting into his phone blinked blankly.

“Huh?”

Something wet and sticky splattered onto the man’s face.

He ran a finger across his cheek.

Pale brain matter and a bright red fluid came away thick and gummy.

“Hah! Life, huh. Never goes my way. Complicated. So complicated.”

Humming a little tune, Paegwang shuffled the cards in both hands, fast as a magician. They were Hwatu Cards.

And ones brimming with Spiritual Power at that.

Shff-shff-shff.

The man who’d been snorting and gripping Paegwang’s collar toppled over like a felled log. His head had vanished without a trace.

A fountain of blood shot toward the sky.

Psheeeeee!

At the horrific carnage that had unfolded in an instant,

the men surrounding him flinched back in terror.

When a situation erupts that the ordinary mind can’t comprehend,

the brain shuts down, a natural defense-mechanism response.

“Wh-what the hell?”

“Fuck! How can a person’s head just……”

In the moment they fell into a panic, agonizing over what the hell to do,

Shhhrrrrrk!

the dozens of Hwatu Cards that had left Paegwang’s fingertips flew through the air like spinning saw blades and swept through their bodies.

They didn’t even have time to scream.

Each time a card sliced across a throat or bored into a chest, blood sprayed in every direction.

The sound of them thudding to the ground one after another, sliced apart like slabs of meat, rang out through the food stall street.

Right then, the canoe that had been chasing from far off touched down on the ground in front of the stalls. The waves parted, and someone approached, coat hem fluttering.

It was Ju Gi-baek.

“Good work.”

“Huff, huff. Me, I’m at my real mana limit now. Chasing a car through the city. Brutal, exhausting work.”

Kahutoa began sprawling flat on his back across the asphalt.

Yu-a, breaking into a cold sweat, pressed both hands firmly to her temples. Squeezing her eyes shut, she said,

“I’ve blocked off the surrounding ordinary people’s sight.”

Just as she said.

The remaining people who’d been watching the massacre from nearby and were about to scream all had their eyes roll back to the whites, mouths hanging open.

And so dozens of ordinary people,

as though under some spell, walked off in the opposite direction.

Paegwang, standing in the middle of the blood-soaked corpses, saw this and burst out laughing. Pfft!

“You’ve got no fucking luck, huh. Mister Taiwanese. If you’d just not bothered chasing me and looked the other way, you’d have made it out with your life tonight.”

“I see.”

Ju Gi-baek stroked the hilt of the Yogwang Sword and faced Paegwang with a sullen gaze.

Even after committing murder, Paegwang still wore the same grinning, giddy face.

An impression steeped in madness, the complete opposite of the Yūda he’d been playing before.

Paegwang curled the corners of his mouth up as if they’d split clear across.

“I’ve heard plenty about you. They say you went toe to toe with a B-rank sorcerer?”

“So?”

“I did want to see it for myself. Back at the villa, when I said I wanted to exchange views with you about sorcery. That wasn’t a lie. That was the one and only time I was sincere.”

“……Are you the talkative type?”

“Well, before a fight, I tend to be.”

Paegwang spread both hands.

Dozens of Hwatu Cards rose in a chaotic swirl around him with a shhrrrk of friction.

“That bit about fighting a B-rank to a standstill. I don’t entirely buy it. Judging by your aura, you sure look strong. But the way I see it, there’s no way you’re B-rank.”

“Then what about you?”

“Me? Well. I’m fairly strong in my own right, the type who cuts down just about anyone.”

Paegwang toyed with one of the Hwatu Cards floating in the air.

A tension as taut as a drawn bowstring hung between the two of them.

He blew on one of the cards with a puff of breath and continued.

“Come on, let’s fight with our lives on the line. Just so you know, I’ve got to run right now, so I’m damn short on time. I think I’d better cut you down and wrap this up fast. Because letting you off without killing you here, my pride just won’t allow it.”

“Same goes for me, though.”

Ju Gi-baek’s gaze sank low.

His coat hem fluttered in the gusting wind. He crooked his index finger up.

“Ilsa-bul-toe Je-cheon (一死不退祭天).” [TL Note: Meaning “No Retreat Until Death, an Offering to Heaven.”]

With Ju Gi-baek’s Word-Spirit, the surrounding air pressed down.

A colossal Sacred Tree (神木) shaped from his mind’s imagery tore through the air and descended. It was a massive Seonangdang, its five-color cloths drifting eerily.

He had, at last, unfurled his very own Self-Nature System in a real fight.

“……?”

Paegwang gazed up at Ju Gi-baek’s Self-Nature System.

A single bead of cold sweat formed on his forehead and rolled down.

“Heeh… th-this, I did not see coming at all…?”